That eating should be foremost about bodily health is a relatively new and, I think, destructive idea - destructive not just of the pleasure of eating, which would be bad enough, but paradoxically of our health as well. Indeed, no people on earth worry more about the health consequences of their food choices than we Americans do - and no people suffer from as many diet-related health problems. We are becoming a nation of orthorexics: people with an unhealthy obesession with healthy eating.
The scientists haven't tested the hypothesis yet, but I'm willing to bet that when they do they'll find an inverse correlation between the amount of time people spend worrying about nutrition and their overall health and happiness. This is, after all, the implicit lesson of the French paradox, so-called not by the French (Quel paradoxe?) but by American nutritionists, who can't fathom how a people who enjoy their food as much as the French do, and blithely eat so many nutrients deemed toxic by nutritionists, could have substantially lower rates of heart disease than we do on our elaborately engineered low-fat diets. Maybe it's time we confronted the American paradox: a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and diet and the idea of eating healthily.
-In Defense of Food
It's possible that, in lieu of a review, I could just post seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
That's Michael Pollan's oft-quoted mantra, the heart of his argument in In Defense of Food. Anyone who's been paying attention to food news in the last few years may also be familiar with some other pieces of Pollan's work: the idea that you shouldn't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize, for example, or anything with more than five ingredients in it. Still, even if they're not new to you, these are easy-to-remember points that could really stick in people's minds and affect how they eat. Pollan elaborates quite a bit, and provides a lot of useful information about how our relationship with food has changed over time, how it's hurting us now, and what we need to change. It's a matter of spreading awareness and education, and helping people believe that they are capable of achieving better health.
It's not quite so easy, of course. Pollan admits that good food - actual food, that is, as opposed to processed food products - is likely to be more expensive and, in some areas, less available than the junk. Still, it's a matter of people who do have the luxury of making these choices doing so. Individual choices add up, and can gradually change the culture.
It's really easy to be snookered by food. I spent years eating veggie burgers, thinking that they were both tasty and healthy. In retrospect: the soy. The hexane (recently in the news). The ingredient list that runs way longer than five. More and more, I'm reevaluating everything. And continuing to read books like In Defense of Food only reinforces the aversion that I'm developing toward processed foods.*
I'm biased, for sure. I think everyone should read In Defense of Food and Fast Food Nation, and watch Food, Inc. and Super Size Me. Or just pick one - In Defense of Food would be an excellent place to start.
As for me, I'm going to be leafing through back issues of Gourmet, looking for something I could cook this weekend. One of the great side effects of avoiding processed food is that I'm becoming a more adventurous cook. More work? Sure. But it's awfully nice to really know what went into you're eating - and that there was no soy lecithin or high fructose corn syrup required to turn it into "food."
Up next: Stephen Fry's autobiography, Moab is My Washpot.
*Replacing my aversion to blueberries, which I am in the process of dismantling, hooray.
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